There are certain objects that I come across in my daily routine which ignite flashes of emotions and memories of you. Chapstick is no longer a plain device to soothe and comfort my lips. You were obsessed with Chapstick when I first met you. You wouldnt leave the house if you couldnt locate a tube of Chapstick to take with you. It was this dreadful California weather which caused your lips to dry so easily. Since you grew up in the humid climate of Hawaii, the dry heat was a constant battle for your bodys moisture. Even your fair skin would tremble at the thought of being outside in the summer sun. You are a born Goth. When I met you for the first time in San Jose, you had just opened a new case of lip balm made from the essence of Hemp. I remember this particular Chapstick because at the end of our relationship, the case was completely empty. Our marriage paralleled the life span of that silly Chapstick dispenser. Your father continually invites you to go live with him in his mansion in Arizona, but youd absolutely melt in such an arid and dry climate. Another new memory association for me is meeting animals in the street. Any dog, cat, bird, or other small creature you would come across, youd walk towards, intrepidly, to pet and communicate with. I remember once while we were driving towards Palo Alto I asked you if you wanted to meet a cow. You werent hesitant at all with your response. Absolutely, you replied. We pulled the car to the side of the road at the first sighting of a cow farm. You told the pack of cows (more like cow-ards) that you were a vegetarian and that you had no intention in harming them, but they didnt listen to reason. A third object that will always open the floodgates to my thoughts is a wedding ring. I cannot see another person sporting a wedding ring without immediately visualizing you, my ex-love. These visualizations come in many forms and images. Sometimes I think of your petite body architecture, sometimes I imagine you lying under the covers to our futon bed. Sometimes I think of you decked out in your work uniform (your scrubs) that also functioned as your pajamas. Sometimes I imagine your freckles and pale skin, and other times I focus only on your lips. You have wonderful lips, dear ex-wife. Hence any jealous feelings I get when I think of you kissing other men. But as youve reminded me on several occasions, its not my responsibility to care for you or your image the way I continually do. Responsibility is a hard thing to abscond from, unless youre irresponsible. But Ive prided myself in my responsible nature, and have a very difficult time relinquishing any responsibility I have to my own memories and emotions. I have a responsibility to allow my thoughts to flow when I see Chapstick, cows and wedding rings. Otherwise, Id repress these interconnected fluid relationships and become a static monster of matter.

The days seem to be getting shorter and shorter which is contradictory to the summer season here in the city. Soon I will start packing my room, getting it ready for the move back to Los Angeles. Moving has always been stressful for me because it forces me to intricately decipher the meaning behind my material possessions. While placing each article in a box, I interconnect with the object and come to terms with the emotional memory Ive placed on a material possession. Each item contains a vivid memory and emotion imbued in its essence, or at least in the essence I perceive it to have. Beyond the direct connection with my memory of the object and the object itself, I am creating new connections and associations with the object, as I see it in the present. I project a future understanding of how I may or may not utilize the object in my future life, using my past memory and connection as a reference point of my prediction. This process is very strategic and calculated, which needless to say, is very time consuming. The energy spent on packing memories into boxes would most likely be better spent physically moving boxes from point A to point B; in this case, from San Francisco to Los Angeles. To me, cities are mere expansions on the metaphor for object and subject concerning emotional and physical memory attachment. The buildings are the boxes which humans pack themselves into. You are most likely at work right now, stuck inside your pet animal hospital. I can never go to your specific work ever again, and I am glad your work will not come to me in Los Angeles. The people, buildings and entire cities we leave behind are just as inter-subjective as the TV I left at your apartment, or the bed Im leaving at my current residence. I am choosing to leave San Francisco just like I choose to leave photos of you outside of the boxes Im currently packing. But objects are never completely inside nor outside of the containers we describe for them. In this way, I am never outside San Francisco, even though I have momentarily left the city. Although my official address has changed, I can still wander back to the city and know certain things about the city: geographical locations, places to buy certain drugs, cultural signifiers that hardly change through time. Our old neighborhood will always stimulate memories and emotions to me. I paint the portrait of the city through the context of my own interpretations. The composition is laid out by memory and thought. Today, I picked up mail from your (our old) apartment. Just walking in our old neighborhood brought tears to my eyes. They werent necessarily sad tears of sorrow, but rather a nostalgic flow of memories and emotions nestled inside streams of beaded tear drops. Nostalgia is a function of vagueness that memories create. Ambiguous connections to smells, sounds, visual stimulus, etc. reach out to our inner emotional ties and networks of memories. The connection between stimulus and the internal gaze is activated through the network of cognitive organization. We try to contain our thoughts by a process of categorization, similar to placing objects from our lives in boxes. But what we come to find is that we cannot contain such vast networks of neural assimilation. With material possessions we are given the option to throw out the old stimulus and replace it with new items in our lives. Memories, even though they supplant one another in their hieratical categories, are not as easy to dissolve into the void of forgotten memories. In fact, the adverse reaction occurs when we try to focus on destroying memories. We re-contextualize these memories and help bind them into our cortexs neurons through such focusing techniques.

You are not the woman I knew (or thought I knew) a long time ago. Something drastic has changed inside you. In fact, Id say that the moment you became unhappy with our love, bored of it even, is when you changed into a completely different person. You no longer like to take risks. Youre getting comfortable in your ways, which has killed the amazing spirit you once had. Think about this. When we first met, you had a sense of humor, a sense of adventure. You longed for Love and would do anything to obtain happiness. This was the woman I fell in love with  a passionate girl with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Your essence radiated with compassion and gentle thoughts. When we spoke over the phone, you had an interest in life that made my heart flutter with delight. I became totally devoted to the idea of your child-like passion for love and beauty. Conversations with you were never boring because you and I would imagine a world together that we would someday create. You were a seven-year old scientist and I was to be your lab assistant. There was nothing to stand in the way of our radiant laughter. It was especially exciting to hear you laugh about the obnoxious qualities of life, which you would change if you had your way. But now, when I speak with you on the phone, you sound drab and dreary. You no longer laugh with me, and the things you use to find humorous just plainly annoy you. The light has dimmed inside of you and all that is left are macabre, sardonic, unpleasant and rude ideas. The vast imaginative woman I once knew has concreted into the sad and depressive consumer. You use to never like to rent movies from Blockbuster because you thought they censored their films, plus they were a giant corporation, which you couldnt stand. Now, you go there almost every night. What happened to you? You use to write nasty letters to pharmaceutical companies because they continually test their death products on helpless animals. Now, you shop at Safeway and take medication for your illnesses. The girl I fell in love with would have kicked your ass if she met you now. How is it that youve locked yourself in your comfortable little cage when you use to be the cage-less bird- the free spirit of love? You could fly anywhere without attachments to the material world. And now, you cling to your apartment like a snail in its shell. I almost feel partially responsible for making your apartment so comfortable. I left the TV, speakers, dresser, coffee maker, DVD player, movies, etc. for you because I didnt have any attachments to those possessions. But, you could have gotten rid of any of those possessions at any time, (which you still may do, only to replace them with similar items which have no emotional attachments to our long lost relationship). I guess, what Im trying to get at is that Im disappointed in you. You had such a promise of being a child forever. I truly believed you would obtain an eternal love that would allow you to never grow old. I doubt you will ever achieve what I once thought possible. My only advice, dear Love, is to make the best of your time, and learn to laugh once again.

Hows your day going? I ask you in my thoughts. Have you been sleeping well and eating right? These are questions that will never actualize into words. What are your plans for the weekend, dear? Inquisitive ponderings glaze through my daily routine of thought and have an urge to unmask themselves by way of my vocal chords. When a specific question haunts me long enough, I eventually answer myself as if the question was never intended to reach you and was posed from me to me. The lingering and looming questions must be answered, I feel. Otherwise Id be stuck on a sentence that would eventually fortify itself in my head, blocking the progression of other thoughts to come about. I once read that the human mind thinks approximately 2000 words per minute. Some words combine to make sentences. Others bounce around in solitude until other words replace the initial thought. Invisible secrets supplanting one another, the thoughts immured in our consciousness flow like a river. And even though one can never step into the same river twice, the refreshing knowledge that our vernaculars will continue flowing through our mind allows us to journey into the stream of thoughts without the fear of drowning in stale static waters. But these questions I pose to you cause dams in my river of thought. My wonders that plague me become busy beavers, blocking the flow of pensiveness. Therefore, I must break through these fortifications by answering questions that are originally intended for you. Moving on from this stream of thought, Id like to inform you about my decision to meet a new friend in Phoenix Arizona. Her name is Morgan and I met her on Myspace a few months ago. I initially thought she lived in San Francisco, as her profile stated, however she moved from CA to AZ a week before I first messaged her. Like you and I, Morgan came to San Francisco with her lover to build a new life together. They loved one another for approximately a year, but Craig, her boyfriend at the time, cheated on Morgan with two other women. He later claimed that he still loved Morgan at the time of his polygamous adventures, though she didnt believe him. And so, she left everything in her new life: her clothes, her job, her rental agreement, and moved back to her safety net in Arizona. She feels like she failed at Love, and maybe she did, but isnt that the point anyway? Can one truly understand the nature of Love without the completeness of Love’s ending? Morgan and I have similar stories in terms of how abruptly our lives have changed as well as how hard these break-ups have been. Our lives parallel on the aspect of disastrous love lives. And so, Ive bought a plane ticket to go visit Morgan on July 7th. Im reminded of the first time I met you because of the similarities of our initial visit. I enjoy traveling to meet new romantic interests. The horizon becomes so much more beautiful when one looks outward. There becomes an emotional attachment to a new city of Romance. Actually, I cant travel to San Jose without thinking of the wonderful times you and I shared. The aftermath of these nostalgic memories are feelings of sadness and sorrow. Therefore, San Jose and I dont play nice with one another anymore. I cant enjoy myself in that city. I think San Francisco has become another location that I wont be able to travel back to without feeling intense and sometimes conflicting emotions. It is my hope that I dont come back to this city, back to you, for a very very long time.

Im feeling a bit nostalgic tonight. My spirits are high and theres a smile on my face. The memory of our first weekend together is enchanting me to write to you and reminisce of our first interactions. These were most likely the more important moments in our short-lived love. The decision to travel to San Jose came abruptly after you told me you were enjoying your friend Bobs company the night before my arrival. I guess it was jealously that ignited my initial visits spontaneous development. I wanted to meet you in person more than any other desire in my life. You had completely seduced me; I was your slave before you even knew me. Even though I had a suspended license from my DUI months earlier, I was willing to risk jail time to fulfill my meeting you. TK, my roommate at the time, came up north with me as my wingman for the drive, but the plan was to depart ways once he dropped me off in San Jose. We left Los Angeles around 9 p.m. on a Friday night. We didnt run into any traffic along the way, which made our arrival into your city quite a beautiful trip. I was dropped off on the corner of 1st Street, where you and I were to meet. I waved goodbye to T.K. as he pulled off into the night to continue on his trip to Sacramento. The fear of you not showing swelled inside me as I surveyed the unfamiliar streets of San Jose. And there you were, perched on top of a light box, drawing the stripper across the street from you. I walked towards you and called out your name calmly and respectfully. You jumped down from your nest landing on your 3 inch soled boots. You were dressed in all black, as was I. We walked towards one another, landing in each others arms. The hug exploded into feverish kissing, and we became immediate lovers. I said to you Yes, lets be lovers. And you replied, Right here? It was the first time I laughed in your presence, in your warm embrace. You drove us back to where you were staying, your friends parents house inside a San Jose trailer park. I remember looking at your physical profile as we drove towards the house. You were beautiful, a true Angel in disguise. When we made it through the household doorway, there was an immediate visceral sensation, and it wasnt long until we were locked in each others lips. I almost denied myself the privilege of making Love to you, as not to proceed in haste. I wanted us to last forever. I wanted to love you eternally. But you insisted in making Love to me. We fucked without protection, which made me uneasy at first, but then I let go of my fears and embraced your love entirely. The next morning, we jumped into the bathtub with all our clothes on like traditional fools in Love. We made our way to the porch of a church that night as you gave me head on the steps, which eventually led into passionate love making. We fucked so many times that weekendmy penis was raw from the friction. I didnt want to leave you the following day. I wanted to stay in your loves light forever, but T.K. was on his way to pick me up. I was sad to leave you, however I knew I would be seeing you again in a weeks time. This gave me the strength to venture back to the land of the Lost Angels. I felt lost without you when I returned home. I knew I was in love, and that great times lay ahead of us. I was blind to the eventual darkness we are now experiencing. I truly loved you. I hope you someday come to terms with this.

There is a vacillation of emotion today: first I skip to the beat of a new song, as if the Angels themselves were banging on their war drums. Secondly, I pause in the moments between songs to mourn for the loss of my fallen brethren. However, when the call to war sounds again, Im back to my post as a happy pawn in the gods wartime musical. Few follow in the Angels footsteps, and the path to triumphant victory seems solemn and only large enough for one body to pass at a time. Single-file lines of separate conscious states build the hierarchy of my march. My mind has psychologically chiseled into an army of warriors, all lined up with their individual special traits, as well as all their hidden weaknesses. Im shielded by my egos protection, a primordial force field of strength and power. My vision is omnipotent through my loves all-seeing floating eyes. I can shoot words of wisdom from my mouths projective presence, or I can blast my enemy with twirling paradoxes and whirling dialectics. With the slightest gesture, I can penetrate my enemys defenses using the pen as my weapon of choice. But what I enjoy most is a subversive offense through song and dance. Like the pied piper I cozy up to you my antagonist, with verses of prose, sung loud if need be, or sung soft and gentle like a mothers sweet songs to her baby lamb. And when I am close enough to strike thee, dear enemy, I can use my fear to my advantage and show you the inner depths of what scares me, causing confusion and chaos amongst your warriors, reflecting upon what it is to be a product of such fear. I am the mirror of your warriors inner struggles. When my fears become their fears through pure projection and self-realization, your men will fall to their knees in empathetic terror. With their hands to their sides, I can breath words of compassion into the air, words so gentle and soothing that the angels themselves will stop beating their drums long enough to listen to my lonely destructive lexicon of death. And for those rebels who are especially deflective of my attack, I will strike those renegades down with the softness of my lips, a kiss for each and every enemy who defies the Angels calling. And what will you do then, my dearest general? What sorts of political means will you use to save your own precious life? As I drop my defenses and lower my ego, you will see me unarmed, nude, and crying, for I know the end is drawing near. You see theres no use for a warrior without war. And when man no longer can attack other men, man will eventually attack himself. Therefore, I deliver to you a treaty of peace, until the next time the Angels decide to call upon us to wage war amongst ourselves. Neither you nor I will disagree to this truce because after all, narcissism is the only reason we follow the Angels decree in the first place.

Ive figured out why you were so kind to me over the phone: you want to kill me with kindness. Youve figured out the formula of how to destroy your enemy the socially acceptable way. Your post-hysterical euphoria, which I mistook for a docile and authentic approach to caring, was nothing more than an attempt to destroy the monster within me using nice, kind communication devices. Your intentions are as transparent as your see-through shirts. You are Moloch, the devious mother who cleverly disguises its ferocious mouth full of razor sharp teeth as a puckered lip full of lovely kisses. Though I wont be fooled by your death kisses of kindness, I will call you out from the shadows and into the light of truth. You will not seduce me with your kindness dear woman. Ive met your type before: Ive been your type in the past. This is how I came to realize your machination  all I had to do was look into myself and there you are. You, mother of madness, are the hideous creature of pure disgust. With no sympathy for your own kind, with no heritage to be proud of, you stand alone in the depths of the underworld waiting to strike at the most innocent of creatures. You are a true beast, an absolute aberration, a beast that cares nothing of children, or of being a child for that matter. I once asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. You replied, Now thats a trick question, Christopher. I never want to grow up. I fell for your response at the time, but have now come to realize, you cant grow up if youre already grown. You have grown into your beast-like form, a killer of love and kindness. The way in which you kill is the most devious and odious of methods possible. You target those who are weak and not ready for anything else other than kindness. Then you pour your wicked words out from your jaws like a witch pouring a potion intended for immediate death; however your wickedness is masked by the sweet smell of laughter, and the scent of a warm heart, thus luring your prey towards you by convincing them you are a gentle lover. When your unsuspecting victim draws near to your open jaws, which by the way is also the same moment you bore of your prey, you leap from the shadows and clench down your muzzle on the throat of your entranced kill. You always aim for the jugular, knowing that one pierce of your victims neck will leave the delicious taste of its freshly squeezed blood in your mouth. The streets flow with the preys incarnadine insides as you devour any lover, any child, any monster, the way one would its most mortal of enemies. You have no friends because youve (sexually) devoured them all, as you spit out their flesh far into the rapid wastelands of this world.

You called me tonight, out of the blue. I was reluctant to Answer the Phone because of my fear of what you had to say. Could you be calling about the pink slip? Maybe you were wondering when I would bring you the divorce papers? Even worse, I thought maybe you reconsidered your decision not to serve me with a restraining order. But when I answered the phone, with a deep inward breath, you sounded as docile as ever, which made me very suspicious of the intention of your call. You asked me where I was and I told you at the Borders bookstore. You even asked me how I was doing, as if you really had a concern for my wellbeing. I told you I was fine and then went into my plans for leaving the city. I found a room available in Highland Park, Los Angeles; I will be moving on July 1st. Tomorrow, Im giving my two-weeks notice at the Academy of Art. You told me you bought our cat, Lilith, a new bed for her to sleep in and you bought yourself a new down-comforter as well. You even offered me my old coffee maker as a gift for my departure. Youve been having your gutterpunk friend Bob stay over at the house because of me, but just out of precaution, and not out of violent contest to my life. What surprised me most about our conversation was that you and I were laughing together about the squirt gun incident. You told me you thought it was funny, even though your friend didnt. I couldnt believe how your opinion of the matter had changed so abruptly, but I didnt mention my disbelief. You told me youve been going to the city street fairs, smoking pot and drinking mid day, just enjoying your off time. Why were you being so nice to me today? Ill never look a gift horse in the mouth (whatever that saying means) but I still have a suspicious concern for you sudden change of heart. But the wonderful thing about our conversation was that I had no hard feelings towards you. I didnt think anything negative during our talk, and actually, I felt a bit of happiness that we could communicate on such pleasant levels. Even though the conversation was superficial and disconnected with our past, I still felt a bit of warmth in your tone. Its probably nothing, and Im most likely over analyzing your words, but its nice to feel nicely towards you. After thirty-one minutes of conversation, my phone battery started dying so I told you I had to go. You ended the phone call with the words call me later this week. And I replied sure. Anyway, well see how things develop in our splitting apart process. I feel strangely right now, confused even.

Today I dropped a letter off to my violin teacher. I wrote that, things have surged between my ex-wife and I have to leave town. Therefore, I will not be able to take violin lessons from you anymore. I apologized for the inconvenience, but reminded him that these defining aspects of my life are beyond my control. I sincerely regret not being able to continue my lessons; I had just learned how to play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You gave me this violin on my second visit to you in San Jose. I was shocked by this wonderful gift you presented me and couldnt wait to learn how to play. I always dreamed of being an elderly gentleman, playing the violin in my lonely old age. You never explained why you got the violin for me, you only smiled and told me I remember you saying you wanted to play. I was so in Love with you dear, as you were with me. Right now Im sad, but thats not new I suppose. I started taking violin lesions as soon as we separated. The violin just sat in the corner of the apartment while we were together. I wanted to use the violin as a release for my pain and anguish, but learning the violin is no easy task. I had to condition my fingers to bow correctly, to bend my wrist in ways it had never been bent before. Gerard, my instructor, would yell at me to correct my thumb position, my pinky position, to clip my nails, to practice more. I enjoyed his company. Maybe I just missed a pedagogical learning environment. Its nice to hear people critique me. Im not afraid of critique and constructive criticism. However, its when people call me unjustified names that I become upset and thrown out of balance. For example, when Im called an “insane psychopath”, when I consider what malicious intentions are behind such draconian words. If I hadnt squirted your friend with a water gun, I would be reciting Twinkle Twinkle to you as I promised you I would. When I told you that I learned to play my first song, a sense of pride swelled in you, and you requested that my first recital be in your presence, because after all you were the one who brought me the violin in the first place. However, this recital will never happen. Who knows, I may try to continue to play in Los Angeles when I can afford lessons again, but for now, all I can do is bow out Twinkle Twinkle, and a few scales. I always wondered if you wanted me to learn an instrument because of your love for Justins ability to be multi-versed in the musical world. I thought you may have been recreating your past love through me, but I never mentioned this curiosity to you out of sheer respect of the gift you gave me. I do thank you for the violin.

99 Letters is the documented process of the visceral and emotional experience I had during my divorce. Writing these letters was an attempt to articulate my thoughts artistically and creatively. Read these memoirs as you would read a fictitious book. Syndicate entries using RSS and Comments (RSS).